[Previously published May 14, 2022; adapted from my 5-24-18 column.]
Y"ALL probably wonder what I m doing up here, eh? Well, all the invited speakers got rejected by the cancel culture, and I said I could fill in today and Yale was really hard up for a speaker, so here we are. I want to open with a quotation by Al McGuire, coach of the Marquette Warriors (if I can say that):
"Common sense is a flower that doesn t grow in every garden." – UPmag.net
GRADUATES, OUTWARD BOUND, AND SNOWFLAKES: I come not to praise you. I come to remind you of people who went before you, people your professors have been slandering for your last four to six years. I come with the realities of current events.
[I thought it would be interesting to repost the column I wrote one month after Trump beat Hillary.]
"Many college grads are merely drugged with small doses of intellectual laudanum [opium] and until such time as its influence wears off, they are unable to adjust themselves to the ordinary responsibilities of life." – Gov. Wm. D. Hoard (Wisconsin)
"It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt . . a usurper is soon found." – President Monroe s first inaugural address
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, my "smart phone" suggested a Daily Cardinal article: "Civic fracture is growing among Wisconsinites, according to a new University of Wisconsin report" (4-17-23, by Tomer Ronen). It was about a UW poll. The gist of it was that disagreement – dissent – is bad and compliance is good. I stopped reading when I got to this:
[Originally published May 19, 2009]
"What it looks like is going to happen is that Libby and . . Rove are going to be executed . . . I don t know how I feel about it because I m basically against the death penalty, but they are going to be executed. — Al Franken (2007)